Leck Beck
Leck Beck is a stream which has source on Crag Hill (2,238 feet) in Westmorland between Leck Fell and Casterton Fell before flowing for most of its course through Lancashire, and which forms for a few miles the border between those two counties.
For several miles near the start of its course, as it marks the county border, the water flows into the Ease Gill Cave System, part of The Three Counties System, the longest cave system in Britain (and 26th longest in the world) by way of 14 major sink holes, to resurge at a major spring at Leck Beck Head.[1][2]
The rising of Leck Beck Head was dived extensively in the 1980s and required underwater digging and the use of an air chisel to make progress.[3] The overflow for this rising, Witches Cave, Yorkshire, has been dived through a thousand-foot sump into Witches II. A dry entrance was dug into Witches II from the surface in 2010.
Below the cave system, the beck leaves the county border and enters Lancashire. In Lancashire it flows through Leck, Cowan Bridge and Overtown before joining the River Lune near Nether Burrow.
References
- ↑ English Nature: Leck Beck Head Catchment Area
- ↑ Gulden, Bob. "World's Longest Caves". http://www.caverbob.com/wlong.htm. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
- ↑ "Leck Beck Head opened up". Descent (110): 8. 1993.
- Location map: 54°10’48"N, 2°34’48"W
